Police detectives in Petach Tikva arrested four youths who
admitted writing antisemitic graffiti and swastikas on the
walls of Beit Sefer Morasha Sunday night.
In a similar incident in the city late last week vandals
scrawled swastikas throughout Beis Haknesses Hagodol and
wrecked beis knesses property.
When the first shul-goers arrived at 4:30 am Thursday morning
for the Daf Yomi shiur preceding tefillas
vosikin they were appalled to see the wall had been spray-
painted with dozens of swastikas and other neo-Nazi
symbols.
Many of the congregants, including some Holocaust survivors,
broke out in tears. Only Russian-speaking non-Jews (in
Israel) could have been capable of desecrating kodshei
Yisroel in such a way, they said.
Petach Tikva Police Commander Motti Feldman told Yated
Ne'eman that a police investigation — including
handwriting analysis — revealed that the four youths
apprehended following the vandalism of the school were not
involved in last week's incident, although the style of the
graffiti was similar in both incidents.
City Councilman Yaakov Fleihammer said he discussed the
gravity of the situation with Lt. Cmdr. Feldman, adding that
yeshiva students frequently suffer harassment on Shabbos
night.
A gathering at Beis Haknesses Hagodol on Thursday night drew
some 1,500 people grieving over the vicious act. "Had such a
thing happened in a kehilloh in Europe the whole world
would be shocked and here, in the city of Petach Tikva, the
sacrosanct is desecrated and nobody protests," said the
moro de'asra, HaRav Boruch Shimon Salomon. Mayor
Yitzchak Ochayoun, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Chief Rabbi
Yonah Metzger also expressed their pain and outrage over the
desecration of the 103-year-old shul.
